Rate My Professor Carol Atmore

Dr Carol Atmore is a general practitioner in Dunedin and serves as Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Clinical Senior Lecturer in the Department of Primary Health Care at the Dunedin School of Medicine, University of Otago. She holds qualifications including MBChB, PhD (University of Otago, 2019), FRNZCGP, MSc (Public Health), Dip Community Emerg Med, and Dip Obs. Prior to moving to Dunedin in 2016, she spent many years working as a General Practitioner and health service clinical leader on the West Coast. She has held senior clinical leadership roles at South Island and national levels, including as former Head of Department in the Department of General Practice and Rural Health. Dr Atmore has led health system service redesign efforts to integrate community care, primary care, mental health, and hospital services in rural communities, strengthening local networks between smaller and larger hospitals.

Dr Atmore's research interests encompass health system design, the role of generalism in the evolving New Zealand health system, integrated care, rural health, and regional networks. Her PhD thesis, completed in 2019, is titled 'Exploring and improving hospital care quality for New Zealand rural communities.' She received the Health Research Council Foxley Fellowship in 2015 to support her work on rural health. Key publications include 'The Southern Primary Care Research Network 3 years on: Reflections from the end of the beginning' (Leitch et al., Journal of Primary Health Care, 2025), 'Patient experiences and perspectives of health service access for carpal tunnel syndrome in Aotearoa New Zealand' (Bühler et al., BMC Health Services Research, 2024), 'Nurses' work in relation to patient health outcomes' (Sheridan et al., International Journal for Equity in Health, 2024), and 'Hauora Māori – Māori health: A right to equal outcomes in primary care' (Sheridan et al., International Journal for Equity in Health, 2024). Her contributions appear in peer-reviewed journals focusing on primary care equity, rural health services, and health system improvements, reflecting her impact on advancing rural and primary health care research in New Zealand.